Man with Plastic Flowers

By the early 60’s a strong feeling of nationhood was palpable. Visual traditions, classical, folk and popular, influenced the imagination of several artists in Baroda, with K.G Subramanyan as a catalyst. The creative fervor at Baroda instigated experiments with the narrative mode and figuration. Artists such as Bhupen Khakhar amongst others delineated a new path.

One of the most provocative and important artists of modern Indian art, Khakhar’s work is characterized by the subject matter that he chose. He depicts and celebrates the middle class in his paintings creating a new iconography which struck a different note. He brought out matters of everyday life and the working middle class out of faceless anonymity and placed them centre stage. He introduced elements of popular culture in his work as can be seen in ‘Man with Plastic Flowers’, Even though the man remains the central focus in the painting a number of everyday events take place in the background that have been placed on the periphery of the picture plane.